My (Formerly) Haunted House

I live in a house that was built in around 1896 or so.  The history books state 1896, but I had a woman come by this last summer who grew up here (about 80 years ago), and she said she thought it was even older than that.

I often get asked if my house is haunted.  My answer is “Yes, it WAS, but now it’s not”.  I do my readings in the basement, and surprisingly the basement has NEVER had a ghost (not while I have lived here anyway).  I think it is because the basement is not as old as the rest of the house and no one bothered to be attached there.

I bought my house in the summer of 2007.  I never liked heritage houses much, I preferred the ‘modern amenities’, but there was just something about this place when I walked through the front door and into the kitchen that made me fall in love.  It felt so much like ‘home’, and ‘family’, that I was hooked the moment I came in.

I have heard so many stories about this place from people I have met.  It has been home to so many families over the years.  I once had a woman and her children come by asking if she could take a picture because her grandma used to live here and she remembered rolling down the hill as a child.  She took some pictures of her children with the house as it is now.  It is one of the oldest houses in Chilliwack.  There is a book that was written about Vedder Crossing where my house is and the woman that stopped by in the summer even knew the people in the picture circa 1906.  The more I hear about this house, the more I like living here.

Now to the ghosts that were here when I moved in – there were a LOT of them!  Some of whom I did not ‘meet’ until after we were all moved in and settled.

~  This post is pretty much just a story of ghosts.

Grandma Ghost

On the main floor in the kitchen was a grandma/mom energy.  This is the loving energy I felt when I first walked in the door.  I remember getting sick a few months after we had moved in here.  Just a cold, but I was sleeping on the couch.  “Grandma” came in and was doting over me.

Another time, I was at the kitchen sink and was cleaning a really big knife.  My son was at the kitchen table and he says “Oh!  That scared me!”  I thought he was referring to the knife slipping in my hand so I said, “It’s okay, I’ve got it”, and he said, “Not that!, the woman that’s beside you”.
I must note, that he meant ‘startled’ when he said scared, he was pretty accustomed to seeing ghosts by this time ~ he was about 7 or 8.

The Ghost ‘Family’ 

There was a mother and father and two kids in my house also, a boy and a girl, both under 10 I think.  I only saw the parents once or twice but my son saw them in his bedroom often.  The kids were another story, they were pretty active in the house.  I remember so many times where my son would say “Mom, the kids won’t let me sleep”.  I would actually have to go upstairs and ask them to quieten down please ~ just like any other kid.

The kids were supposed to stay together and usually they did, but there were times where the girl would come downstairs on her own.  They were pretty energetic.  Normally when I talk to ghosts or spirits I hear them telepathically.  I have no desire to hear them out loud or see them like I see ‘live’ people.  When I was about 15 I had ‘put it out there’ energetically, quite clearly that I would not talk to them if they startled me.  Kids being kids though I suppose, they did talk out loud sometimes, and they DID startle me.  I would sometimes hear them laughing upstairs, or one time I was on the couch on the main floor and the little girl came up behind me and said “Hello” quite loudly, and out loud.  Startled the begeebers out of me!

I was very accustomed to seeing the kids peripherally on the stairs while I was in the living room at night (either reading or watching TV).  Of course I would look directly over and they wouldn’t be there.  One night I was sitting there and ‘saw’ something again, I looked over and Jake (my son) was standing there, live and in the flesh.  I almost peed my pants!

Another time my husband was sitting on the couch and I sat down on his right side and said “the girl is beside you on your left” and I proceeded to tell him what she looked like and what she was doing.  Asked him if he felt anything.  He got a little creeped out and said “just yesterday, I was sitting in this same spot, Jake, sat down beside me, told me the girl was beside me and described her exactly as you just did”.

My poor husband, he doesn’t see these things.  Maybe I shouldn’t say ‘my poor husband’, I’m sure most of the time he’s quite content to not be interrupted by these ‘others’.  

It wasn’t until we lived with these very active, verbal ghost kids that my son even knew my husband could not see ghosts/spirits like we could.  I remember driving in the truck, my son in the back seat and we were talking about the kids keeping us up the night before.  My son asked my husband a question about it and Sean says “I don’t see the kids, I have never seen them, I can’t”.

Well Jake didn’t believe him.  He thought he was being joked with, that his dad was pulling his leg.  It took us quite a while before we convinced Jake that he had a gift and that, as obvious as these other people in our house were to us, most people simply did not even know they were there.

The Ghost Husband and Wife

There was a younger woman on the main floor of the house who was usually around my office/front entrance area.  I didn’t see her so much as feel her.  My son would sometimes come in while I was working at my computer and tell me she was here.

Unfortunately, sometimes ghosts can impact our own energy and we don’t even know it.  I did not even know she was impacting me until I had her cleared.    More on that in a sec.

There was a large, dark man in the master bedroom.  I didn’t really care for his energy but it wasn’t overly ‘bad’ or ‘negative’, just not totally comfortable for me.  Turns out he was the husband of the woman on the main floor.

I actually had to have someone else look at this couple for me and clear them.  Theirs was an energy that I did not ‘recognize for what it was’.  I spend a lot of time in my office, writing and doing work online.  I went through a phase while living here when I was very anxious when my husband was not home.  I would find myself almost waiting for him to come home from work.  I would get upset if he was late or if I did not know exactly where he was or if he was okay.  It was as if my whole life revolved around his comings and goings and him being here.  For the record, this is NOT my normal state.

Anyway, I was not feeling myself, and found myself getting upset (for no logical reason) a lot of the time so I enlisted the help of someone to get my energy cleared.  I didn’t know what was wrong exactly, just knew I wasn’t feeling ‘good’ or ‘right’.

I talked to a Shaman and she told me that the husband upstairs and the wife downstairs were together.  They had lost a baby before it turned a year old.  The man was upstairs, waiting for the wife to come home.  The wife was in my office by my front entrance waiting for her husband.

Once I got them both crossed over, my anxiety about my husband not being here, and my constantly ‘waiting for him to come home’, disappeared.   Thank God ~ that was a really uncomfortable time for me.

The Headless Army Ghost

This one is pretty interesting.  This fellow usually stayed in the spare room at the top of our stairs and/or hung out on the landing at the top of the stairs.  He presented with an army uniform on, and never had a head.  He had been in a battle and lost his men and blamed himself.  One of his reasons for not crossing over.  He was nice enough, no negative energy except for his guilt, but a little unnerving at times due to the fact his head was missing.

I remember in 2008 my sister in law coming to visit from Ontario and stay for a few weeks.  It was a nice time of year and we often had morning coffee in the back yard.  Me and my husband were sitting out, and his sister came out with a cup of coffee and said “I had the weirdest dream last night”.  She was staying in the spare room at the top of the stairs.  She starts telling us about this guy in her dream that had an army uniform and no head.  He had some old coins in his hand and held them out to her.  She’s an old coin buff, so recognized them as being from around the 1870’s or 1880’s.

 

As soon as she told us her ‘dream’ me and my husband both burst out laughing.  We gently told her that it was the ghost.  Think we scared her.  She hasn’t been back for another visit.

 

The Ghost Woman on the Street

There was also a woman who walked back and forth around the bottom of our driveway.  I remember a client coming in one day and saying she knew the house because there was a woman at the end of the driveway pointing to our house and waving at her.  I used to see her a lot when I was out front doing yard work or mowing the lawn.  I suspect she was there because the house I live in had an orchard and the owners would sell fruit and other things from the property.  I think the woman was there to bring in customers.
So, those are all the people I moved in with when I bought this house.  It was pretty crowded.  They have all been crossed over now and are safe and sound on the other side.